


May 1943

by hiraethy



Category: Enemy at the Gates (2001)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, I decided that Danilov's first name is Ilya since he doesn't have one in canon, M/M, Post-Canon, With A Twist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2019-03-09 02:07:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13471434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiraethy/pseuds/hiraethy
Summary: "I am here to inform you about your son, who has been reported dead in Stalingrad on November 20th, 1942."





	May 1943

**Author's Note:**

> me: i'm totally over eatg  
> brain: SYKE

"I am here to inform you about your son, who has been reported dead in Stalingrad on November 20th, 1942."

The woman sitting in front of Vasyli lowers her head.

"On behalf of the Soviet Union," continues Vasyli, "I extend to you and your family the deepest sympathy in your great loss."

The officer behind Vasyli steps forward and puts a dented, ruined suitcase on the ground between them and the woman.

Her eyes move to that object in no man's land. Silence lingers between them. Then she speaks. "I," she says, her voice rueful and weak, "I don't even know how it happened."

_This is not fair_ , thinks Vasyli.

"They didn't let me know. He's my son."

_This is not fair._

"Your son gave his life on the battlefield to protect the City of Stalingrad from the fascist invader. He contributed to the glory of the Union. It is thanks to men like him that the Motherland is free-”

The woman lifts her face and it’s like an earthquake to Vasyli, because those hazel eyes throw him into the past. He must stop to take a breath.

“This alone must offer you consolation.” He continues as the woman's eyes turn watery, shimmering.

“Ilya,” she whispers, her hands joined on her lap. “My Ilya.”

Ilya. Vasyli read his first name on the documents he was given, on the photos he signed. He never heard it from him, nobody ever got the time or felt the need to ask him his first name, nobody ever called him that, and Vasyli never heard it spoken out loud except now, from the lips of his mother.

_This is not fucking fair_.

How does Vasyli _tell_ her? How could he tell her about her son at war?

He could never describe the way his eyes shimmered when he debated, how his brow knit together when he focused on his writing, his hands were always as dirty as Vasyli’s, his voice throbbed quietly through his throat, he had been so cold there on the ground, he had been so heavy in his arms.

Good God, she _has to_ know. Why must Vasyli be the only one carrying this cross?

There’s so much about him Vasyli has to tell her- his eyes. They had been so empty, so dull. Vasyli had given him König’s rifle, he hadn’t given Tanja, no, _him_ , and _he_ had been buried with the weapon in his arms like he had died embraced to a lover.

“He was brave.”

Vasyli can sense the officer behind him stiffen.

“Brave, in his own way.”

The woman looks up to him and Vasyli finally can lock eyes with her for some instants, before it becomes too much and he surrenders. He looks down to his hands on his lap. He catches a glimpse of his medals and his military rank on his chest.

"Your son is the reason why I am still alive.” _And I am the reason why he got as far as he got._

“I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him. He was passionate. Determined and ambitious. Frightfully clever.”

Vasyli stops. He realizes that his mother knows all of this already. He looks up to her.

“We were at war, you see. War does terrible things. It did terrible things to him, too. But he did good too. I _know_ that there was good in him. I saw it. He gave everything he had for this country and his comrades. Everything he did, he… He was a human soul. And he wanted to help, in his own way. He knew when he needed to close the loop."

The officer paces forward as to seal a point or put a full stop to Vasyli’s quiet rambling. The sniper is looking at the woman dead in the eye right now, channeling everything he can’t put into words. She isn’t crying anymore. Instead, on her face there’s a clear stillness, her shoulders don’t shake anymore, and her hands rest on her lap almost elegantly and suddenly she’s not a simple woman from the suburbs, she’s much more and she incarnates so many more. Mournful, childless- Russia teems with grieving mothers. Vasyli knows Germany does too, as any other country in the aftermath. He tries hard not to focus on the fact that he too created parents in mourning with his very hands and skilled eyes.

“A mother shouldn’t bury her son,” It’s not his words that are coming out of his mouth right now, the saying is older, ancient, coming to them right now through his grandfather and his great-grandfather and backwards, backwards, a sorrow that spans across centuries.

The woman breathes heavily. Vasyli knows. She would give everything to hold his son’s body and lay him down for the last time. Vasyli knows how it feels like.

There’s the sound of the front door opening from the room behind the woman, some slow steps coming closer. Then a man steps on the threshold and Vasyli swears he’s seeing a ghost. An imprint on this world. Saying that his father looks exactly like him- it’s not enough to convey the shadow he casts as he steps closer into the room. He wears dark colors and small reading glasses. His eyes are grey. He steps behind the woman and rests his hands on her shoulders.

“Good day. Comrades,” a quiet, deep voice.

Suddenly there’s more steps coming from the other room. They’re lighter and quicker.

A child enters the room and all eyes lock on him, even the stern officer’s. A woman has entered from the main door too and is stepping forward. She holds the child to her, caressing his shoulders and head. She can’t fight the thick tears starting to stream down her cheeks. The little one looks at her, his grandparents and finally he looks at the officer and Vasyli. Yet another pair of hazel eyes scrutinize the sniper. They speak a thousand words.

There’s an uproar inside of the sniper, a tumult nothing can subdue, hurtful and surprised anger, sadness, pity. They burn his chest from the inside.

“Ilya wrote us so much about you. You two were his heroes,” says the older woman reaching out to the little one who still can’t look away from Vasyli. Then the younger one accompanies him towards the sniper and the child offers his tiny hand for him to shake.

The next minutes are blurry to Vasyli. His stern companion offers the whole family his and the Union’s condolences and breaks character, smiling warmly to the young boy.

Vasyli is accompanied outside, where he says goodbye to the family. The last salute is for the little one. They wave at each other. Then the door closes behind him and Vasyli once again is alone under the grey, heavy sky.

“You didn’t tell me you had a son,” He catches himself murmuring, “You didn’t tell me.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Ilya: East Slavic form of the male Hebrew name Eliyahu (Elijah), meaning "My God is Yahweh".
> 
>  
> 
> thanks to Den for putting up w/th me and Danilov and for being the most satisfactory beta reader <33


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